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Stéphane Hessel, writer and inspiration behind Occupy movement, dies at 95
Hessel, resistance fighter, diplomat, writer of Time for Outrage! and co-author of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dies
The French president, François Hollande, said of Hessel: 'He leaves us a lesson, which is to never accept any injustice.”
“From his childhood in Berlin and then Paris, where he was brought up by his writer and translator father, journalist mother and her lover in an unusual ménage à trois, to his worldwide celebrity at the age of 93, when a political pamphlet he wrote became a bestselling publishing sensation and inspired global protest and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
And then there was everything in between: his escape from two Nazi concentration camps where he had been tortured and sentenced to death, his escapades with the French resistance and his hand in drawing up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
Sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday, just a week after his last big interview was published, Hessel's long and extraordinary life came to an end. He was 95 years old, but as one French magazine remarked: "Stéphane Hessel, dead? It's hard to believe. He seemed to have become eternal, the grand and handsome old man."
Le Point magazine added that the man with an "old-fashioned politeness and elegance from another age" had "danced" with the best part of a century.”…- Details
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Even if Iran gets the Bomb, it won’t be worth going to war
'Containment is a better response than conflict in dealing with a country we have long mishandled'
…"that “the hand of England” is behind whatever befalls the Iranians – is a popular Persian saying. Few in the UK have the remotest idea of our active interference in Iran’s internal affairs from the 19th century on, but the Iranians can recite every detail.
From an oppressive British tobacco monopoly in 1890, through truly extortionate terms for the extraction of oil by the D’Arcy petroleum company (later BP), to putting Reza Shah on the throne in the 1920s; from jointly occupying the country, with the Soviet Union, from 1941-46, organising (with the CIA) the coup to remove the elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, then propping up the increasingly brutal regime of the Shah until its collapse in 1979, our role has not been a pretty one. Think how we’d feel if it had been the other way round.”…
Read the article: Even if Iran gets the Bomb, it won’t be worth going to war
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Following on my previous blogs on “Volunteerism”, such as The Good Life: In Pursuit of Happiness?, Why Love, Trust, Respect and Gratitude Trumps Economics, In Praise of Generosity, Compassion and Kindness: Lessons of London 2012, In Praise of Volunteerism: If you want to change yourself and the world for better, think of volunteerism, and In Praise of Caring, Volunteerism and Service for the Common Good: The Story of Camila Batmanghelidjh, I am now delighted to tell you that, according to medical science and research, indeed, volunteering is truly good for you.
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, USA and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, have documented that:
* Being a volunteer is good for the heart as well as the soul
* Volunteers have healthier cardiovascular systems
* Heart health improves after 10 weeks' volunteering
* The most empathetic see the greatest health benefits
* Older volunteers are less likely to be depressed
* Volunteers have lower levels of inflammation and cholesterol and lower BMIs than non-volunteers
The above study follows a survey last year by the UK charity WRVS which found being an older volunteer is good for your health.
Older people who volunteer to help others are less depressed, have a better quality of life and are happier with their lives as a result.
Those who take part in more volunteering activities, more frequently, boost happiness levels even further, with volunteers gaining improvements in depression levels, quality of life and life satisfaction over the following two years.
Read more:
Volunteering is not only good for your soul, it could also stave off heart disease
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